


i swear to you, no more scarcity

by Archaeopteryx



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Body Image, Body Positivity, Growing Old Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Old Married Couple, Post-Canon, Weight Gain, fat and soft and happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25672447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx
Summary: “Dimitri,” Dedue murmurs, “when did we get so old?”“Sometime after we stopped being young,” says Dimitri. Dedue chuckles wetly and nestles in against Dimitri's side. Dimitri’s hand slips into his own.Age creeps up on them. They grow soft, and fat, and happy.It's time to rest.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Comments: 13
Kudos: 78





	i swear to you, no more scarcity

It's not the first time Dedue's had to pause at the top of the stairs, but it's the first he's been winded enough to lean against the wall. "Are you alright?" Dimitri asks, worry plain in his voice.

Dedue nods. "F-fine." He straightens and rolls his shoulders back, though he hasn't really caught his breath. Something deep and instinctual churns at the thought that Dimitri must _wait for him_ , that he _can't keep up._

"Well — if you say so. Just a bit further, then you can sit down.” Dimitri rests his hand on the small of Dedue’s back. Dedue would protest, argue that he doesn’t need the help, but he can’t draw breath to get the words out.

Dimitri shuffles him to their rooms and sits him down before the hearth, then fusses off to fix tea for them both. Dedue sits back against the couch, folds his hands over his belly, and stares into the flames. His heart still thumps against his ribs. His knees ache; his shoulders ache; his back aches. Getting up, he is dismally aware, will be a complicated and difficult procedure.

When Dimitri returns, he leans in to kiss Dedue’s temple with a cup and saucer in each hand. Dedue takes his — steaming, golden ginger, a clean, piercing aroma that clears his head and finally gets a breath to the bottom of his lungs.

“Is something wrong, love?” Dimitri slides in to sit beside him. “Do you feel unwell?”

Nothing he can name. He doesn’t feel _ill_. Just — “Dimitri,” Dedue murmurs, “when did we get so old?”

“Sometime after we stopped being young,” says Dimitri. Dedue chuckles wetly and nestles in against Dimitri's side. Dimitri’s hand slips into his own.

They stay at the hearth, sipping their tea and leaning into each other, until it fades into a dim red glow, and the sky outside has sunk to a deep, inky blue, and their teacups rest empty on their knees. Dedue has begun to drift off, his eyelids sagging beneath their own weight as his head nods onto his chest, when he's disturbed by a soft snore at his shoulder. Dimitri has slumped against him, head tipped back, mouth half-open with a thin line of drool darkening Dedue's sleeve. A strand of hair slips down against his nose, and flutters with each rumbling breath.

Dedue's content to watch him until he spots the saucer slipping from Dimitri's slack fingers. They may be old, but he's quick enough to catch it before it chips against the floor. He sets it aside with Dimitri's teacup, then elbows his dozing husband until Dimitri stirs with a snort. "Hngh — ?"

"Better to sleep on the bed, my dear," says Dedue. Dimitri blinks muzzily, then mushes his face back into Dedue's shoulder.

" 'on' wanna," he complains. Dedue jostles him until he gives in. " _Fi-i-ine._ "

Dedue braces Dimitri's lower back, pushing him up off the couch so he can offer Dedue his hands and pull him up in turn. A crackling orchestra of aging, beaten joints accompanies a chorus of grunts and groans, but by the end of the production, they're both on their feet. Dimitri smiles, a deep, blue-shadowed crow's foot crinkling at the corner of his good eye, and raises Dedue's knuckles to his lips. Dedue sweeps Dimitri into his arms and kisses his cheek, his neck, his jaw dark and rough with the evening's stubble, until he laughs and squirms away like a wriggly cat.

“Enough, enough!” he cries, skipping back as Dedue grabs after him. Dedue chuckles lazily, and goes to put their cups and saucers safely away before following Dimitri into their bedroom.

Dimitri’s already half-undressed, back to the open door when Dedue steps through it. His broad shoulders flex — the skin pulls tighter, thinner, over his spine than it used to. The old scars stretch across his back, shifting with the bone and muscle beneath, bent and knotted even after decades.

Dedue taps his knuckles against the door, and Dimitri turns, tossing his shirt haphazardly back towards its drawer. It lands with a sleeve spilling over the edge, but it doesn’t fall, which Dedue counts lucky for both of them. He raises his eyebrows at Dimitri, who huffs and goes to fold it away neatly while Dedue begins his own disrobing.

He catches a glimpse of his reflection in the tall mirror, and pauses, frowning.

Even as a child, he was never lean, but somewhere along the line he’s passed from ‘heavyset’ to well and truly ‘fat’. His chest sags; thick rolls settle around his waist and hips. His belly spills over his belt, and ripples when he pokes it. Something unnameable squirms beneath his ribs.

It’s just that — he has never had the luxury of excess. He has always lived between winters, with every feast shadowed by the inevitable famine, too busy bracing for the next frost to think of years or decades to come. Who is this stranger, whose body moves identically to his, who shares his wrinkled brow and the lines carved deep around his mouth, soft and sagging comfortably into the latter half of middle age? The same scars, the same battles, mark his body; how will he survive the next one?

Beneath this fat lies the same muscle as ever, but these days, Dedue's bones falter more often than not. Battered joints have stiffened; old reflexes have dulled, and he’s neither as strong nor as quick on his feet as he used to be. If called upon, he could take up a blade or his bare fists to defend himself or those he loves, but he would feel it for weeks afterwards.

Dimitri nuzzles in against his side, slipping beneath his arm. “You’re quiet, my love.”

“I’m always quiet.”

“Quieter than usual.” Dimitri’s reflection wrinkles his nose. Time has softened his edges and settled heavy on his bones, and he’s put on a comfortably padded gut, but he remains more or less lean. The muscles of his limbs stand out in corded relief, and his hipbone juts sharply against the swell of Dedue's upper thigh. "Talk to me, Dedue. Are you well?"

"I am not ill," says Dedue.

"That doesn't mean you're well."

"No."

Dedue stares at the stranger in the mirror, whose arm rests comfortably around his husband's shoulders. He grips the roll around his belly and jiggles it. So does the stranger.

"I never wished to be a warrior, but that is what I became," he says at last. His brow furrows and his nose wrinkles; his voice curdles, cold and bitter. It's not true — it _isn't_ — but he needs to speak it, all the same. "What use is a warrior once he's old and soft? Will I be abandoned, like an axe left to rust?"

It's been some years since Dimitri served as king, but the old lion's roar rumbles in his throat. His reflection's eye flashes with ice. “ _Never_. You will never be abandoned, Dedue. You have loved a king, and raised another, and rebuilt two nations, and that will never be forgotten.” His gaze softens. He wraps his arms around Dedue's middle, though he can't reach the full way, and pats his belly. It ripples. "This is peace, my dearest, my north star, and you carry it beautifully. How old are we now? Sixty-three?"

"Sixty-five," says Dedue. "Sixty-four for you."

"Sixty-five," Dimitri echoes, hushed, thoughtful. " … I never thought I'd live this long."

Dedue’s throat knots; he swallows, and turns his face into Dimitri's hair. "Nor I," he whispers.

But there he stands in the mirror, wrinkled and worn, round and softened by years of peace and plenty, with his arms around the man he's loved for fifty years and counting. Dimitri is solid, hearth-warm, breathing slow and steady against his side. Not weapons, hung up and forgotten, spotted with rust and dry-rot, Dedue thinks, breathing in deep through his husband's hair. Two old warhorses put out to pasture, freed of bridles and barding to graze to their hearts' content.

Dedue tilts his head, resting his cheek against Dimitri's temple, and watches as his reflection does the same. “I’ve dreamed of peace for as long as I can remember,” he says. “Since I was a child. To live quietly and grow old with the man I love … I have wanted nothing else.” Dedue sighs, noting the rise and fall of his chest, the stretch of the axe-scar still gouged across his sternum. “Then … ”

Silence finishes the sentence for him.

Dimitri presses a kiss to Dedue's shoulder, and reaches around to find Dedue's other hand, guiding it up and around to the nape of his neck. "Here we are, despite it all,” he murmurs. “Let me see … _hup!_ "

He bends his knees, wraps his arms around Dedue's thighs, and straightens with a grunt, lifting him cleanly off the ground. Dedue grips his shoulders, stomach lurching, but Dimitri’s grip is secure and unwavering.

"Still got it!" Dimitri declares, chin pressed into Dedue's belly, beaming up at him with the same old crooked smile.

Warmth wells up through Dedue's chest; God of love have mercy, or he'll drown. He cradles Dimitri's cheek in his palm, his thumb brushing the crow's feet carved deep by time and laughter. "I love you," he says. "As much as I ever have. You are as handsome as ever."

"And you, as beautiful," says Dimitri, his eye sparkling. "You were made for this, my love. To be fat and soft and happy. I only regret that it took so long.” His brow furrows, and he takes an unsteady step, still carrying Dedue. " _Oh_ -kay. There we go. You'll have to steer me, love, I can't see where I'm going at all."

"Neither can I," Dedue points out. Dimitri laughs, still bright and boyish after fifty years.

"Has that ever stopped us?"

He carries Dedue to their bed, then lays him down, creaking and careful, and loves every inch of him with the vigor of a man thirty years his junior until they collapse together, spent and comfortably exhausted. Dedue will regret it tomorrow, but for now — drifting in a pleasant, sweat-streaked haze, with his head on Dimitri's chest and Dimitri's hand in his hair — he can only find joy in the burgeoning ache in his hips and back.

“We did it,” he whispers, as his voice grows soft and hoarse. “We grew old together.”

“So we did,” Dimitri sighs. His breath ruffles Dedue’s hair, and he presses a kiss to the top of his head. “Rest now, my love. We’ve earned it.”

So they have. So he does.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is, for once, an actual song lyric, from [The Clearing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIVrGkmjiuo) — one of my favorite songs, and a favorite Dedue/Dimitri pick in particular.
> 
> _This is the green of the sun through trees  
>  With soundproof leaves, they stand our guardians  
> Underneath this canopy, fall to your knees,  
> You don't want for anything_
> 
> _I swear to you, no more scarcity_  
>  I swear we all deserve these things


End file.
